Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Image

Philosophies and Programming Languages Screenshot-sm 239

Posted by samzenpus from the what's-it-all-mean dept.
evariste.galois writes "Wikipedia has a special section called, 'Language Philosophy,' in every article for a programming language. This section looks at the motivation and the basic principles of the language design. What if we investigate further than that? What deeper connections between philosophies and programming languages exist? By considering the most influential thinkers of all time (e.g. Plato, Descartes, Kant) we can figure out which programming language fits best with aspects of their philosophy (Did you know that Kant was the first Python programmer)? The list is not exhaustive, but this is a funny and educative start."
Software

Opera 10 Alpha 1 Released, Aces Acid 3 Test 258

Posted by timothy from the now-it-sees-all-the-spiders-and-tastes-color dept.
Khuffie writes "It seems that the upcoming version of Opera 10, of which the first Alpha has recently been released, has already passed the Acid 3 test with a 100/100. The only other rendering engine to have a complete score is WebKit, which can be seen in Google Chrome's nightly build. Opera 10 Alpha 1 will also finally include auto-updates, inline spell checking, and see some improvements to its built-in mail client, including much-requested rich text composition."
Medicine

Doctor Performs Amputation By Text Message 242

Posted by samzenpus from the l33t-5ki11z dept.
Peace Corps Online writes "Vascular surgeon David Nott performed a life-saving amputation on a boy in DR Congo following instructions sent by text message from a colleague in London. The boy's left arm had been ripped off and was badly infected and gangrenous; there were just 6in (15cm) of the boy's arm remaining, much of the surrounding muscle had died and there was little skin to fold over the wound. 'He had about two or three days to live when I saw him,' Nott said. Nott, volunteering with the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, knew he needed to perform a forequarter amputation requiring removal of the collar bone and shoulder blade and contacted Professor Meirion Thomas at London's Royal Marsden Hospital, who had performed the operation before. 'I texted him and he texted back step by step instructions on how to do it,' Nott said."
The Internet

Your Online Profile Actually Tells a Lot About You 272

Posted by timothy from the explains-my-dating-life dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Despite all the media reports that your Facebook profile is giving the wrong impression, a psychological study shows people really can understand your personality from your online profile. Turns out you're not giving the wrong impression with your profile; you're giving the right impression to the wrong people. You can actually learn more about someone's Agreeableness from their online profile than from a first date."
Businesses

Dead At 92, Business Computing Pioneer David Caminer 142

Posted by timothy from the 92-and-holding dept.
Brooklyn Bob points out this fascinating obituary of David Caminer, the first systems analyst. "The tea company he worked for developed their own hardware and software — in 1951! Quoting New Scientist: 'In today's terms it would be like hearing that Pizza Hut had developed a new generation of microprocessor, or McDonald's had invented the Internet.'"
The Almighty Buck

GoDaddy VP Caught Bidding Against Customers 222

Posted by timothy from the strong-accusations-so-consider-the-source dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A GoDaddy Vice President has been caught bidding against customers in their own domain name auctions. The employee Adam Dicker isn't just any GoDaddy employee; he's head of the GoDaddy subsidiary that controls the auctions. Dicker won some of the domains he bid for, and pushed up the bid price on auctions he didn't win. The conflict of interest is unethical, but could this practice also be illegal? Said a representative for a competitor, 'Even if controlled, that practice has bad news written all over it.' This comes hot on the heels of news that despite earlier promises to ICANN to end their 60-Day ban on transfers, GoDaddy quietly circumvented it by forcing customers to agree to the ban anyway. ICANN doesn't appear to be investigating or asking follow-up questions about this. What can be done to force ICANN to police the registrars for which it is responsible?"
Communications

Netgear Launches Open Source-Friendly Wireless Router 182

Posted by timothy from the market-linksys-chose-to-mostly-ignore dept.
An anonymous reader submits news of Netgear's release of the "open source Wireless-G Router (model WGR614L), enabling Linux developers and enthusiasts to create firmware for specialized applications, and supported by a dedicated open source community. The router supports the most popular open source firmware; Tomato and DD-WRT are available on WGR614L, making it easier for users to develop a wide variety of applications. The router is targeted at people who want custom firmware on their router without worrying about issues, and enjoy the benefits of having an open source wireless router."
Media

MPAA Scores First P2P Jury Conviction 335

Posted by Soulskill from the connection-reset-by-jury-of-peers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The MPAA must be celebrating. According to the BitTorrent news site Slyck.com, the Department of Justice is proclaiming their first P2P criminal copyright conviction, against an Elite Torrents administrator. The press release notes, 'The jury was presented with evidence that Dove was an administrator of a small group of Elite Torrents members known as "Uploaders," who were responsible for supplying pirated content to the group. At sentencing, which is scheduled for Sept. 9, 2008, Dove faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.'"
Businesses

Submission + - Communicating in a new startup

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: A friend and I are on the verge of starting a small company. It will begin small (around 5 employees and and advisory board) and slowly grow to small/mid-size (around 20 employees plus advisors and consultants). While we expect the employees to normally be located in the same office complex, we foresee a few telecommuting from home or afar and expect much of our advisory board to be spread about the country. In the opinion of the all-knowing slashdot reader, what is the best way to keep everyone in step and available for communication without becoming overbearing? Is on-demand email/phone enough? Should we schedules regular conference calls? Should we utilize IM (and if so, which services shine and which fail)? Along a slightly different line should we adopt and enforce email signing and encryption policies from the beginning? A simpler question, perhaps, is what kinds of communication policies have YOU experienced: what was lacking, what was annoying, and what did you love?

UK Woman Charged As Terrorist For Computer Files 470

Posted by Zonk from the more-you-know dept.
Terror Alert Brown writes "Reuters is reporting that a UK woman has been charged as a terrorist because of computer files on her hard drive. According to the article, these files included 'the Al Qaeda Manual, The Terrorists Handbook, The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, a manual for a Dragunov sniper rifle, and The Firearms and RPG Handbook.' She was picked up in connection with the plot stopped in August to detonate explosives in airplanes flying out of Heathrow airport. Now might be a good time to delete any copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook you once read for amusement and still have floating around on your hard drive."

Sony Rootkit may Lead to Regulation 266

Posted by CowboyNeal from the enough-is-enough dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Computerworld has a story about DHS officials meeting with Sony to read them the riot act, following the rootkit fiasco. From the story: 'A U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official warned today that if software distributors continue to sell products with dangerous rootkit software, as Sony BMG Music Entertainment recently did, legislation or regulation could follow.'"

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Broadband 572

Posted by CowboyNeal from the luddite-and-lovin'-it dept.
Ant writes "eMarketer has an article on The Yankee Group's analysis on why some Americans aren't feeling the broadband love. It was based on Ipsos Public Affairs. 45% of Americans say it's simply too expensive. 30% say that they just don't want it. 14% say they feel dial-up is adequate for their needs. Less than 10% are not able to get broadband access in their area. Five percent insist broadband is "too complicated". Another 5% aren't even sure why they don't have it..."

A 1.2 Petabyte Hard Drive? 431

Posted by CowboyNeal from the peta-unavailable-for-comment dept.
Angry_Admin writes "Rather than spend millions of dollars for an array of hard drives when you can have all that storage on just one drive? A story at P2P.net US inventor Michael Thomas, owner of Colossal Storage, says he's the first person to solve non-contact optical spintronics which will in turn ultimately result in the creation of 3.5-inch discs with a million times the capacity of any hard drive - 1.2 petabytes of storage, to be exact. According to the article, In the past, data storage has only been able to orient the direction a field of electrons as they move around a molecule, Thomas said. "But now there's a way to rotate or spin the individual electrons that make up, or surround, the molecule," he says. He expects a finished product to be on the market in about four to five years, adding the cost would probably be in the range of $750 each."

Slashdot Top Deals

If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.

Close